


Too Long

by dshep33



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x23 coda, Cas couldn't have fucking died what, M/M, Season 12 finale, dean aches, destiel - implied, i'm in denial, no, nonononononononononononononononononononono
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 17:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10948860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dshep33/pseuds/dshep33





	Too Long

His heart felt as hollow and empty as his bed.

He’d almost gotten used to it in the past months that Cas had left to hunt down Kelly, but now there was a note of finality to it.

There was a hole. A hole only his angel’s grace could fill. But there was no grace, there was no angel. Naturally, he’d tried to fill it with the only thing he had access to.

Booze.

And blood.

Vampires, werewolves, witches, demons, everything. He hunted them incessantly. Sometimes with Sam, sometimes not. He didn’t care. He was merciless toward them all.

But it wasn’t enough. Soon, it was too much. It was like his own personal Purgatory. Fighting and blood, blood and fighting. But even Purgatory was better than this. In that blighted and forgotten realm, there was still an angel who’s wingbeats echoed down the corridors of his heart. Now, his heart beat alone. There was no echo. It was silent as a funeral pyre. Silent as the tomb.

He stopped hunting.

He got a job in the city, surrounded by people and as far away from any monster as possible. He tried to bury the blood that permanently stained his hands in paperwork, and at first it worked. He filled the chasm of his heart with ink, and he thought maybe he could forget the past. But at every street corner he’d see a tan coat, or striking blue eyes, or a shock of black hair on tanned skin and his heart would break ever so slightly more.

He left the city.

He built a small cabin in the woods, somewhere high enough in the mountains that he didn’t have to interact with people that often. Mainly, he only went to get food and alcohol.

He hunted a lot again, but it wasn’t the same hunting. Now it was deer. Rabbits, fish, the occasional lone wolf that strayed too close to his home and chased away the game. Once there was even a cougar, half-dead with starvation that came stumbling by during the first winter he weathered there. It was rabid and got a little too close for comfort, but he had dealt with worse. Much worse.

He had made sure to stay close enough to civilization to still get cell service. He knew Sam would be worried about him, as Sam always would. Sweet, naive Sam. He was hell-bent on finding a way to get both mom and Cas back, but Dean knew there wasn’t. Mom was trapped in an alternate universe, and Satan himself pulled her in there. She was beyond dead, by now. And Cas...

Dean had seen the blade come out of his chest. He’d seen the light blast through his eyes as his grace burned itself away on the holy dagger. He’d seen the ashen wings that could only signify the end of a celestial life.

Sam had seen it too. But it didn’t hurt him like it did Dean. Sam still had the energy to go investigate the house after the nephilim scorched his way out of Kelly. Sam still had the energy to get rid of it somehow. Dean never understood how he did it. Maybe Chuck or Amara _did_ intervene, after all.

None of that mattered, now. That night still haunted Dean’s every dream, even after almost two years of solitude and grief.

Every time Sam called, it brought that pain back. Dean knew he was just trying to help, but with every promise of “I’m almost there, Dean.” or “I’ve been researching this spell...” the flimsy bandages that he’d bound his heart with would come undone, and his soul would bleed anew. It was worse when he would visit. Sometimes he’d have a cute girl buy his side, a huntress he’d found that could make a burger almost as mean as Dean’s. They’d chat and Sam would talk the night away about the progress they’d made with the records they uncovered from the British Men of Letters’ facility, but as Dean’s reactions grew less and less invested, the visits came shorter and fewer, and then not at all.

He threw his phone over the edge of that old gorge one day. Sam had called him again, and he just couldn’t bear to answer. If Sam _did_ make a breakthrough, he’d come. If he had found a way, he would know it would be important enough to come in person.

He’d finally finished that garden he’d been working on. It was coming along well, and the river at the bottom of that hill had a surprising amount of fish in it. He could make a smoked salmon almost as good as he could a burger, now. He was just more glad that he didn’t have to talk to anyone. He could _finally_ be alone.

He’d ran out of beer a couple months ago. At first it hurt like hell, not having any liquor burning his liver away, but once he fought out of the withdrawals and as his diet improved, his body felt better and better. He didn’t ache as much. At least... not physically.

He spent a lot of the time looking out over the same cliff he threw his phone over. He found that the expansive view piqued his inspiration. He also discovered that he liked to paint, and his poetry seemed to be improving, too. At least as far as he could tell.

He was out there one evening, looking over the sunset as it dwindled to nothingness below the clouded horizon. It was beautiful, with the reds and the pinks, oranges and deep, royal purples. He liked the clouds. They hid the sky from him. The sky was blue, and anything blue he tried to avoid. No matter what shade of the color it was, it was always too close to the cerulean eyes that he _still_ found himself looking for.

The sunset was fading slowly, and the temperature was going with it. It was early spring, and there was still snow on the ground, piled against trees and boulders like ashes after a fire. He didn’t mind the cold, but eventually he knew he’d have to go inside.

When his toes were numb and his ears were bright red with frost, he decided to call it a night. The walk back to his cabin was short, but he had grown accustomed to the forest. He knew how to walk slow. It took him almost half an hour to walk the quarter mile stretch, but he enjoyed it. Quiet contemplation seemed to be the only thing he enjoyed these days.

He stumbled into the dark warmth of his home, lighting a lantern and hanging his coat on the rack he’d whittled out of an old elm tree a while back. Of course, his shoes had to come off, too. They were covered in snow and half-frozen mud. Couldn’t risk getting the rest of the house dirty.

He wandered into the kitchen to look for a late dinner, but didn’t find much. There were some carrots, a slice of that horrible pumpkin pie he’d attempted to make, and some fish that smelled a little _too_ fishy. He took the carrots and wandered back to the living room.

The front door opened and closed with a shudder, and instantly Dean the demon-slayer was back. With practiced moves etched into his mind from decades of chopping up monsters, he crept through his house on only the quietest floorboards. His pistol seemed to materialize in his hands. He only used it for self-defense now.

Rustling. Footsteps. A gruff voice emitting a low “oh,” as something fell to the ground.

Dean clicked on his mag-light, shining the intruder in the face, but he himself was the one to be startled. A flash of tan, followed by black and blue. A beard he’d tasted too many times to forget. A silly blue tie he’d undone so often, he still knew exactly how it’d been tied.

“Hello, Dean.”

And he was home.

 


End file.
